December 28, 2009

Gideon Levy, Year of Shame

Ha'aretz's Gideon Levy marks the one year anniversary of Operation Cast Lead in the best way he knows how -- condemning Israel with wild exaggerations. One year ago he exaggerated the number of Palestinian civilians killed, and now he wildly inflates the number of Palestinians whose homes were destroyed ("The year of shame"), referring to the "325,000 people whose homes were destroyed."

Where does Levy get this number? According to the Al Mazen Center for Human Rights, an anti-Israel Palestinian NGO, the real number is less than a third of what Levy claims. Consider Table 23, found on page 25 of Al Mezan's report entitled "Cast Lead Offensive in Numbers," reproduced below.

Thus, according to the Palestinian organization, 2,632 homes housing 22,053 Gazans were totally destroyed, while 8,522 homes belonging to 86,836 individuals were partially destroyed, ie damaged. (Page 20 of the Al Mezan report explains that "partially destroyed" refers to "housing units that moderate to heavy damages but can be repaired.") Thus, even if you accept the broadest possible definition for destroyed, the highest number of residents whose homes were "destroyed" is 108,889 -- less than a third of the figure that Levy claims.

"On the anniversary of the attack on Gaza, few people are doing any real soul-searching," Levy wags a finger at the Israeli public. But it is Levy who is guilty of committing old transgessions -- wild exaggerations and fabrications in the name of vilifying Israel.